Colloquium Abstract - Minschwaner - 2025Oct31

October 31, 2025

11:00am Mountain

Ken Minschwaner (NM Tech)

 

Earth’s Radiation Budget and Climate

 

Abstract

The idea of radiative energy balances at the planetary scale has been around for centuries, but only within the last few decades have we managed to quantitatively observe key energy fluxes for Earth and accurately model the complicated spectroscopy and radiative processes in Earth’s atmosphere. The combination of observations and model results places powerful constraints on how the climate on Earth is shaped by radiative processes, and in particular by the presence of infrared absorbers (greenhouse gases), solar radiation absorbers (e.g., ozone), and by clouds in the atmosphere. Despite recent progress, misconceptions about climate science persist and are fueled by reports such as the “Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate” commissioned in July 2025 by the US Department of Energy. I plan to present a broad overview of Earth radiation budget data and modeling results over the past 30 years that have helped underpin assessments developed by the climate science community, such as reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and I will show how these more rigorous assessments generate far different climate projections than ad hoc reviews such as the DOE 2025 report.


Local Host: Brian Svoboda

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